Friday Night Ritual
by Tazo
Summary: Seras and Pip learn the perils of an overactive imagination and prying too deeply into your employer's affairs.


I own neither Hellsing nor it's characters. They are the property of Kohta Hiriano, Young King Ours, and Gonzo entertainment.

This fic was written as part of an LJ meme for MTS, with her permission I post it on

A quick explanation, this fic takes place in anime cannon after the end of the series, but has the manga character Pip Bernadette in it, and assumes that Hellsing hired his mercenary company after Integra was released and reinstated.

* * *

Seras yawned as she buttoned up her uniform. It wasn't that she wasn't glad to be back under the newly reinstituted Hellsing organization, but it had been getting kind of boring lately. The FREAK chip organization had been very cautious lately, which meant for much more downtime for the young vampire.

She glanced over at the blood pack resting comfortably in the bucket of ice on her small table. Seras was rather tickled by the ice bucket Walter always served her blood in. She sat down at the table and was about to rip off the top of the bag when she decided that she really didn't want to have breakfast alone tonight. She grabbed the bucket of ice, pushed through her door, and tramped upstairs.

When she reached the dining room reserved for the troops, she found it completely empty except for a young man in a leather jacket, a cowboy hat, and a long braid of hair wrapped around his neck leaning back in a chair with his feet up on the table.

Seras pushed his feet off of the table and sat down across from him. "Good evening Captain Bernadette."

"More like good morning to the likes of you, mon cherie." Captain Pip Bernadette said as he put his feet back up on the table.

Seras glared at Pip's boots as she ripped open the top of the transfusion bag. "Shouldn't you be on guard duty or something?"

"That's the advantage of being a mercenary _captain_. I just have to be on call to command major operations. No more guard duty for me."

Seras sucked at the blood pack and glared at the mercenary captain that had taken Fargason's place. "No _more_ guard duty for you? I don't think you've been on guard duty your whole life. Who would trust _you_ to guard anything?"

Pip chuckled and pulled his feet off the table, learning forward. He pushed his hat up away from his eyes. "Oh, I have. I've slogged my way through war with the best of them, Police Girl. I've stood guard in colder, lonelier places than I care to remember. It's why I like this job so much better than any of the others I've taken. Sure, the enemies take a couple more shots to go down, but it's much more comfortable living. Can't keep wandering around all the time." He leaned back and put his feet up on the table. "Besides the scenery around here is much nicer."

Seras continued to suck on her blood pack. "Oh really?"

"Oh yeah. The enormous hills around here. Simply beautiful."

Seras frowned. "What hills? This is a flatland area."

"You don't see them? They're enormous. Practically mountains. I don't know how you could miss 'em, being that you're always closest to 'em and all."

"What do you me-" Seras glanced down at her chest, then glared at the Captain, her red eyes burning with rage. "Why you!" She reached down for a fork and reared back to throw it at Pip when the fork head suddenly fell off, cut by a monofilament wire. She growled and threw the bar at Pip anyway, who quickly dodged it.

"Now, now, we can't have any of that," Walter said as he walked in, retracting his monofilament wires. He set a plate of food down in front of Pip's chair. "Your omelet, Captain Bernadette."

Pip pulled himself back into his seat. "Thanks, Walter. I'm afraid I'm going to need another fork though."

"Not a problem," Walter said, producing another fork. Pip took it gratefully and dug into his omelet.

"Drink your blood, Miss Victoria, before it gets warm."

Seras blinked, then looked back down at her blood. She started to sip at it. "Walter, where's the Master tonight?"

"Yeah," Pip said. "And for that matter, where's the boss at? Usually she's got some order to hand down to me."

Walter glanced at his wrist. "I believe they're still engaged in their Friday night ritual."

Seras suddenly stopped sipping. Pip's fork stopped halfway to his mouth.

"...Friday night ritual?"

"Yes, up in Sir Integra's room. It's something they've picked up ever since she was released from prison. They should only be an hour longer."

"...What if something comes up before then?" Pip asked.

"Captain Bernadette, we hired you because of your record. Unless you've been lying, I daresay you and your men should be able to handle anything short of another attack on the scale of the Valentine Brothers."

Walter picked up the pieces of the fork and strode out of the room. Pip and Seras stared at each other for about a minute.

"You don't think..." Pip started.

"...No, it couldn't be..." Seras said.

"I dunno... I've only been here a month or two and I can already tell that..."

"Yes, but I don't think they'd actually..."

Pip grinned and shoved a piece of omelet in his mouth. "Only one way to find out," he said.

* * *

"This is such a bad idea," Seras whispered as she crawled behind Pip.

"Hey, you're the one that wanted to find out," Pip responded as he snaked his way along the ventilation shaft.

"You wanted to know too!"

"Yes, but that's hardly relevant. You got the duct cover off pretty easily, by the way. Have you done it before?"

"No. Vampire, remember?"

Pip nodded, then pulled himself up into a higher duct. "Riiight. That thing." He turned around and helped Seras up into the higher duct.

"Why are you so good at this?" Seras asked.

"Merc. work isn't all out and out warfare. I've done my number of black ops missions."

"Why do I get the feeling I don't want to know what you've done?"

"You don't. Shhh, we're right above them!"

Pip crawled forward, managed to roll around so that he was facing Seras. They both huddled over the grate, which gave them a view of Integra's carpet. Alucard and Integra's voices drifted up through the grate.

"I'm impressed, Alucard. I didn't think that was possible."

"To be perfectly honest, neither did I. It was a risk, but one that definitely paid off."

"Oh, it definitely paid off. I still can't believe you forced something that big through."

"You can force anything through, if you have the will to do so. You of all people should know that."

Pip and Seras looked up at each other, their mouths agape. Seras shook her head in disbelief.

Sudenly, the metal beneath them started to creak. Pip glanced down at it and bit his lip.

_CRASH_

The old ducts gave way under their combined weight, sending Pip and Seras flying down in a hail of plaster and metal. Pip found himself lying on his back on Integra's very nice, and, he noticed, very soft carpet. Seras was lying on top of him, face buried in his chest.

Pip glanced over to see Interga and Alucard sitting around a small table with a chess board resting on it.

Alucard grinned. "Now, Police Girl, didn't anyone teach you how to play hard to get?"


End file.
